Sweet n Salty: Burnt Ice Cream
by hanyou-samurai
Summary: Sweet and salty baby. Riku doesn't want to go down to the beach for fear of getting sunburned. Sora make him go anyway. Riku agrees only after making Sora promise to buy him ice cream. He gets burnt anyway. Not shonenai, just friendship. Light hearted.


**Well, where I am was going through a heat wave, so I wrote this with my laptop heating up my room. It was horrible. But a fic was born, so it's all good! Second oneshot in a week! Go me! Now if I could just update my other stories...  
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**Disclaimer: I still don't own Kingdom Hearts, any characters, items, or trademarks associated with it. You sue me, I sue back. **

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**Sweet n Salty:**

**Burnt Ice Cream**

The brown haired, blue-eyed teenager ran into his best friend's room, not bothering to knock on the door. His albino-haired best friend looked up. The room was freezing, and he was wearing long pants and a sweatshirt. The shades were drawn, and the only light on was a lamp over the chair in which he was sitting, reading a book. His aquamarine eyes skeptically examined the brunette's clothes. Merely swim trunks and sandals. Oh, and a bright blue blow-up flotation device around his waist that was shaped like a spotted dinosaur.

"What is wrong with you Riku?" The brunette cried out.

Riku raised an eyebrow. "I could ask you the same thing, Sora." Sora rolled his eyes exaggeratedly and stepped into the room, flipping the light switch. As the overhead light turned on, Riku hissed.

"Turn that off, moron. It's… bright."

"Yes Riku. That's the point. They're supposed to aluminum!"

Riku opened his mouth to respond, and then he thought about Sora's sentence. "Wait, aluminum?"

"Yeah, like," Sora gestured with his hands. "Y'know, make stuff brighter."

"You mean **illuminate**." Sora waved his hand dismissively.

"Whatever. Anyway, come one. It's the first time this summer we've all been home. Let's go outside and go swimming and soak up some vitamin D!"

"No." Sora ignored him and ventured farther into the room, rubbing his bare arms.

"Why is your room so cold?" he asked, walking to the thermostat and reaching to turn it up.

"Touch that and I will personally feed you to rabid fan girls." Sora's skin, already tanned, paled visibly and his hand lowered slowly.

"Then will you answer why it's so cold?"

"So I have an excuse to wear long clothes and not get sunburned." Sora sighed over dramatically.

"Riku, we live on an **island**! Of course you're going to get sunburned!"

"You don't," Riku pointed out accusingly.

"That's because I'm naturally darker than you, you vampire."

"I am **not** a vampire. Kairi's just as pale as I am."

"She is not. She's darker. And she tans a lot better than you do."

"Sora, I don't tan! We've been through this! Why else would I be sitting in a dark room wearing long sleeves in July!"

"… Because you're a freak?" Riku threw his book at Sora. Sora dodged it, and it hit the floor.

"Sora! Pick that up?"

"What? Why me? You threw it!"

"Sora…" growled Riku, narrowing his eyes. Sora gulped and picked the book up, setting it on Riku's bedside table.

"Riku, will you please come swimming? Please? Kairi's already down there, along with everyone else, and Tidus and Wakka bet forty bucks **each** on a blitzball game, and I can't play doubles with just me, and without you, I don't even have a chance of winning! Come on, please?" Riku sighed, running his hand through his uncombed hair.

"Fine. But you owe me sea-salt ice cream." Sora jumped up into the air.

"Yes! Okay, deal! Be down there in ten minutes, okay?"

"Okay," grumbled Riku as Sora ran out of his room. The minute his best friend was gone, his mother walked in.

_Oh crap,_ thought Riku. She wasn't supposed to come in while the temperature was that low.

"Riku," she growled, aquamarine eyes he had inherited from her narrowed. (He had inherited his silver hair from his father, who was away on a business trip at the moment.) "You are wasting electricity. Now get your pale, skinny butt outside before I throw it out there. You got that?"

"Yeah mom. Geez. I'm leaving, I'm leaving."

"And turn that thermostat up!" She cried as she closed his door, hard. Riku rolled his eyes, smiling. He loved his mom so much. And then his smile faded as he realized something.

He opened his door and yelled down the stairs, "I am **not** skinny! I'm pleasantly thin! And I am **not** pale! I just have fair skin!" He heard his mom laugh.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Just go outside!"

"Fine," grumbled Riku as he shut his door again. Quickly, he changed into his swim trunks and slipped a t-shirt on. He grabbed a beach towel and a very large bottle of sunscreen and headed out the door, slipping on his sandals.

"Bye mom!"

"Bye honey! Have a good time!" Riku closed the door and set off at a jog for the beach.

When he got there, the first thing he did was plop down underneath the girls' large beach umbrella and proceeded to saturate his skin with sunscreen. Kairi, with sunglasses on, looked at him over the top of her magazine and giggled.

He glanced at her. "What?"

"You don't need quite that much." Riku ignored her remark and instead asked her a question.

"Why aren't you swimming with Selphie?" The girl in question was at the moment trying to knock Sora off of his blue dinosaur. Selphie had spent so much time in the sun; there was no way she would burn.

"I'm waiting for my sunscreen to dry. What's your excuse?"

"My mom caught me in a dark room with the air conditioner on and threw me out. Oh, and before that I made Sora promise me a sea-salt ice cream if I came out." Kairi laughed again.

"Maybe you can blackmail him into buying me one," she said with a grin before taking her sunglasses off and tying back her shoulder length red hair into a ponytail. "Come in soon," she said to Riku before running to the ocean and jumping in with a loud yell, splashing a wave of clear blue water of Sora and Selphie. Riku continued to plaster sunscreen all over himself. He heard footsteps, looked up, and saw Cloud. The blonde sat down next to him, honey-like skin the type that never burns. Riku was jealous.

"Hey Cloud. I didn't know you guys were here yet." Cloud nodded. Yuffie had dragged everyone from Hollow Bastion to the Destiny Islands to vacation. Normally, the boys would have just said no and continued on with their day, but Yuffie talked to Aerith and Tifa first. And once all three of the girls decided they wanted a vacation, then they would get a vacation.

About ten feet down the beach, Leon was asleep in the shade of the umbrella the Hollow Bastion girls had brought. He had naturally dark skin, the kind that would never burn, just get darker and darker. Yuffie had fair skin as well, but she had been at the beach for at least an hour and wasn't showing a sign of sunburn, as her black bikini showed. She and Tifa were moving the beach umbrella closer to Kairi's, so it made one big area of shade. Both girls smiled as they saw Riku.

"Hey Riku. Finally made it out of bed, I see," said Tifa grinning. She wouldn't burn: her skin was dark.

"I wasn't sleeping!" exclaimed Riku. Aerith and Tifa held fingers to their lips and pointed to Leon. He was now in the sun, and Yuffie was burying him in the sand. He would have a sunglasses tan, and Riku couldn't help but wonder if that was Yuffie's whole aim in life: making Leon's life harder.

"Be quiet. We have to bury him, and then we're going swimming. You two come too, okay?" said Aerith. Her skin wasn't dark, but it wasn't vampiric pale either, as Riku's was. Riku and Cloud nodded. The girls headed back to Yuffie, and Riku looked at Cloud who was watching the younger teens swim. Wakka and Tidus were playing one on one beach blitzball. Tidus had honey golden skin, and Wakka was very dark. Neither would burn. It looked like Riku would be the only one to burn yet again this year.

"Cloud, would you do my back?" Cloud didn't even glance at him.

"I'd rather not."

"Why not?" asked Riku, cocking an eyebrow. The year before, Cloud had no problem putting sunscreen on another guys back. They were all friends, so why did it matter?

"Last year, Yuffie accused me of being gay and bugged me about it for three months." It seemed her goal in life was to make Cloud's life harder as well as Leon's.

"That's not that bad, is it?" Cloud rolled his eyes at Riku.

"She left me gay magazines, and the addresses and phone numbers of gay bars. Yeah, it was that bad." Riku sniggered.

"Fine, I'll go ask one of the girls." As Riku was standing, Kairi's cell phone rang. Riku answered it.

"Hello? Yeah, she's swimming, hang on. I'll get her." Riku covered the mouthpiece, and called, "Kairi! Phone!" The redhead swam to the shore in long, powerful strokes. If you lived on an island as they did, you became a strong swimmer very quickly. Like that saying: 'Sink or swim.' Kairi answered the phone, slightly out of breath after her run up the beach.

"Hello?" Riku finished doing his legs as Kairi finished her conversation. She flipped the phone closed.

"Hey Kairi, can you do my back?" She nodded and proceeded to do so before heading back to the water. She was joined by Tifa, Aerith, and Yuffie who had finished burying Leon. A few minutes later, Riku's sunscreen was dry and he stood, tying his hair back.

"Come on Cloud. If we don't go in, they'll drag us in." Cloud stood too, brushing sand off his swim trunks.

"I know." The two headed into the water. Riku immediately went under, and swam thought he crystal clear water to Sora. He grabbed his foot. Sora freaked out, and went under. When he saw who it was, he glared, and went back up. Grinning, so did Riku, drawing in a long breath as he broke the surface. Sora shook his chocolate spikes back.

"Riku, you suck! Now Selphie has Plumon!"

"… Do I want to know who Plumon is?" In answer, Sora pointed to his floatie.

"It's a digimon!"

"You sure it's not a pokemon?" asked Riku sarcastically. Sora gaped at him as if he had just spouted wings.

"Oh, great, thanks Riku! Now I have to totally rethink this!" Riku laughed, and splashed his best friend with seawater.

"You're funny." Sora ignored him and went back to try and get his pokemon/digimon/dinosaur back from Selphie, who was sitting on it giggling gleefully.

Riku's head was submersed as Yuffie jumped on him, covering his eyes. He gasped as his head came up again, water having gone up his nose.

"Guess who Riku! I'll give you a hint! I'm a ninja, with a seper-suxy hairdo! Hee hee, sorry, that was super-sexy hairdo!"

"Yuffie, get off!"

"Wow, you guessed right! Crazy!" Yuffie jumped off him and swam to where the rest of the girls were laughing. Riku rolled his eyes and went to hang out with Sora, Cloud, and Tidus and Wakka, who had quit their blitzball game and come to hang out.

After going swimming, Riku, Sora, Tidus, and Wakka had an intense two-hour game of blitzball in which they tied. After everyone had collapsed to the ground, pouring sweat they agreed that the bet was off, since nobody could play anymore. By this time, Leon had woken up and was very confused as to why he was buried in sand.

"Why am I buried in sand?" he asked, examining himself. "Yuffie!" Yuffie giggled madly.

"Hey, Tif and Aerith helped me!" The girls in question burst out laughing as Leon extricated himself. After that, they went swimming again. After the swim, Riku fell onto the sand, tired. He quickly fell asleep in the sun, stomach up. A bit of a ways down the beach, the group was talking in hushed whispers, plotting.

Quickly going around the beach, they collected anything they could find. Old bottles, seaweed, rocks, coins. Those they artfully arranged on Riku's stomach. An hour later, the albino-haired teenager woke up. He noticed the various items littering his stomach, rolled over and knelt. He groaned as he saw himself.

He was red. Not just sunburned, like other people got burnt. Oh no, he was red, lobster red. Everywhere. This was why he didn't want to go swimming! He stretched and looked for his friends. Twilight was falling, and the only one still there was Sora, eating a sea-salt ice cream. Another one was sitting right beside him.

"Good morning sunshine. Have a nice nap?" Riku nodded, grabbing the ice cream. He knew it was his. Even sweets obsessed Sora wouldn't eat two ice creams before dinner.

"Sora, why did I have various items on me when I woke up?" Sora laughed.

"Well, since you were asleep and we had already buried Leon today, who, by the way, got a sunglasses tan, we decided to put stuff on you to see what shapes we could make. Look at you. They're cool!" Riku looked down at himself. The non-burnt parts of his body were pretty cool, but he was still ticked.

"I can't believe you did that, dork!" He hit his best friend over the head, grabbed his towel and shirt, slipped on his sandals, and headed home.

"Wait! Don't go! Oh, you're leaving anyway. Be here tomorrow!"

"Tomorrow I am hanging out inside! You guys can come if you wish!" he yelled back. He couldn't get his shirt on. His skin hurt too badly.

"Okay!" Sora yelled back cheerfully.

Riku closed his front door a bit harder than he'd meant too, taking off his shoes at the entrance.

"Hi honey! Did you have fun?" his mom asked as he walked into the family room, looking up from her book. Riku glowered at her as he threw his towel and shirt onto the couch, and showed her his bright red skin, and the non-burned designs in it. His mom burst out laughing.

"Oh, be quiet," he said, smiling. It was kind of funny, now that he thought about it.

"They're cool designs!" his mom said, still chuckling a bit.

"Yeah, whatever," he said, heading up to his room. "Tomorrow, I am sitting in my room with the temperature turned way down!" he called down the stairs.

"If you do that then I'm throwing your skinny red butt outside! And put some aloe vera on that burn!" his mom yelled back up.

Riku closed the door to his room, and sat gingerly. It hurt just to **move**. And then a slow grin spread across his face. It **had** been a fun day, and he had gotten sea-salt ice cream out of it. Riku licked his slowly melting ice cream.

"Sweet and salty baby. Sweet and Salty." His phone rang and he picked it up.

"Hello?"

"Hey Riku!" It was Sora.

"Hey. What's up?"

"The girls are going shopping tomorrow, and everybody else is getting dragged along. You want to go prank people?" Riku's grin widened.

"Oh yeah."

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**So, I kind of set it up for a sequel, if I ever get the initiative. Don't hold your breath. And now, my dear reader, review!**


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